Beer Forum

My next brew is going to be a low OG belgian-style pale. Almost considered a single. I plan on splitting the 5 gal batch into 2 fermentations and adding some dark candi syrup to one. When should I add this? I have a 1lb bag, how much should I use to not overpower the beer? I was thinking of a brief boil with some extra water and adding some when I split after the wort boil, but listening to some archives when candi syrup was given away each week, the idea of adding some throughout the fermentation little by little came up. Thanks!

I have only used it once, and the recipe I used it in called for the addition around the last 10-15 min of the boil. If you wait and add it to the fermentor, I don't think you will be able to get it to fully disolve.

With a beer that small you will be fine doing it just like you said, boil briefly, cool, then stir it in. The little by little method you are referring to is used more for really big beers. As far as calculating how much to add to give you a reference, belgian tripels generally have about 30% of extract as sugar and you can go up to 10% without affecting flavor much. Assuming your candi syrup will give you 32 points per pound per gallon if you added 1 pound to 2.5 gallons of 1.050 wort it would give you an OG of 1.062 with about 20% of extract coming from the candi syrup so that would probably turn out OK.

I add mine at the end of fermentation, the liquid syrup is pretty fluid, so hasn't ever been an issue getting it dissolved and into solution.

spiderwrangler wrote:I add mine at the end of fermentation, the liquid syrup is pretty fluid, so hasn't ever been an issue getting it dissolved and into solution.

This is what I do also with no issues. But if it's a small enough beer 1.050 or below and you keep the sugar to less than 15% of the fermentables, go ahead and throw it in at the end of the boil.

I did a split batch recently with one of the 5 gallons with syrup and the other without. I added it right to the fermenter right after I pitched the yeast. This would not be ideal in a high OG beer...mine was pushing the limit at 1.070. It fermented out just fine. I think adding syrup is pretty forgiving if its not a really strong beer.